


Hurt

by chronicAngel



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Cemetery, Gen, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-25 20:47:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18582298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: "They had to pry me away from him, you know. That's how it hurtme. A mother's pain. So please, tell me, George Eacker, what is a murderer's pain like?"





	Hurt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fast_Dirt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fast_Dirt/gifts).



> Happy late birthday, I got you some tears.

Her boy is dead.

He's been dead for nearly six months and yet it does not hit any less hard when she thinks about it. The only difference is that now she is standing once more in front of his dead body for the first time since he died in her arms and he's so, so pale. He's always had a warm complexion like that of his father and now he is ashen.

His father... Alexander can hardly stand on his own. Indeed, he leans heavily on her side with a hand resting on their daughter's shoulder and one of Angelica's arms wrapped firmly around his shoulders to help support him. He does not sob with his grief, but she can feel his silent cries wracking his body.

 _One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine_. She counts in her head to distract herself from the pain of what is happening around her.  _Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept_. Her mind stops there. That's where he stopped, too. She hasn't been able to count past seven in French since he died. Thunder crashes and she jumps but on a level she is grateful for the sound to pull her out of her thoughts.

She knows someone is talking. Saying something over his dead body. Words of remembrance, perhaps, or reassurances that he is with God now.  _He shouldn't be with God_ , she thinks bitterly.  _He should be right here with us_.

The weather suits the mood of the occasion, she thinks. The rain that soaks into her blouse, perhaps seeps into her skin and soaks her down to her bones, makes her shiver and yet she thinks,  _Should I not be shivering on such an occasion?_ Indeed, if there is a soul here who can bring themselves not to shake or cry then she would ask them to leave. There are so many people who surround them and she is sure that they know them all but she can hardly recognize any of them.

The crowd disperses around them slowly. Philip was a boy of sunshine and people gravitated toward his warmth. He was surrounded by friends wherever he went. It makes sense that so many gravitate here to mourn his death. To mourn the loss of his warmth and his light. The lack of sunshine on the day that they are putting her boy,  _her boy_ , in the ground makes total sense. She would not be surprised if there was never another sunny day again. After all, God has taken her sun-- her  _son_ \-- away from her.

"Eliza," Angelica says eventually, the first of any of them to speak up. They're the last ones left in the churchyard. They cannot bury Philip until everyone has left, but perhaps she does not want them to. She doesn't want them to put her boy in the ground. "We should leave. The rain will make the children sick." She looks at her children. Indeed, their clothes have been weighed down to stick to their skin with the wet. Angelica is actually shaking, though Eliza thinks that her daughter has been shaking constantly since her brother's death. She moves frantically between crying fits and not even realizing that Philip is dead.

"I..." She starts, voice cracking as she looks between her sister and all of her children.  _All of her children except one_. "You go ahead. I just... I need more time with him." She tries not to pay too much attention to the face her sister makes at her. Pity. It's all anyone has been looking at her or Alexander with for the past six months. Still, Angelica bends over to pick up little Eliza and balances her on one hip and then takes William's hand to lead him back to the house. It's a short walk. Eliza will see him shortly. Still, her heart throbs when her four-year-old son looks over his shoulder at her as though questioning why she isn't walking with them.

She practically collapses onto the wet ground in front of Philip's coffin the moment she is alone in the churchyard. She does not care about the smudges of mud that it smears across her skirt. She'll throw the dress away later, she hardly cares. Her body shakes with sobs but no tears manage to spill. She suspects she may have cried all of her tears in the first couple months, as she has hardly been able to cry for him since the year turned. Though her boy is in a coffin, he will not have a marked grave. He is being buried too late for that service. This is the last time she will know precisely where he is.

She wants to say something to him. It seems increasingly likely that he will not be able to hear her, though. What sort of God, after all, would take her boy? Is it unjust, then, to draw the conclusion that if there is indeed a God, something she is not certain she still believes, He is a cruel being? Who is to say lost children can hear their mothers?

Someone clears their throat behind her, and she does not even whip around in fear. Perhaps it would be dangerous for any other woman to stay alone after dark like this, half-crying in the rain, but she does not think there is a soul in this city who does not recognize who she is. Similarly, there cannot be a soul in this city who does not know why she is here. "Mrs. Hamilton," says the voice behind her, and she finally turns.

It's George Eacker.

She has only met the man a handful of times, but she would know his face anywhere.

"I..." He seems to swallow. She narrows her eyes at him. "Could I see him?"

She does not say anything. What would she even have to say? She is not going to turn him away no matter how much she does not wish to be in his presence. After all, perhaps he wants to atone. Perhaps he is here to apologize to God in front of the body that he desecrated. It was his bullet that ripped through her boy. Then, perhaps he is here to apologize for that. Perhaps he knew she would be here-- perhaps he even heard it on the street; gossip carries awfully in New York-- and rather than apologizing to God, he is apologize to her. As though his apology could bring her son back.

He coughs, and she slides her glare over at him. He pulls out a handkerchief to cough into and she thinks she may catch little spots of blood in it before he tucks it back into his pocket. "Apologies. I've been battling with illness for months," he says. "And... perhaps there is something else I should apologize for."

They both look at Philip in his coffin. He looks so peaceful. Even in his last moments, he was so stoic. Just like his father.  _Damn Hamilton men_ , she thinks.  _Damn them all to Hell, if such a fate exists._ "I have no need for your apologies," she says not unkindly, though it certainly holds no warmth. It is simply a fact. No number of apologies will give her what she wants. They will not give her her son.

"Right." He coughs again, though he does not pull out his handkerchief for this. It is, in fairness, a smaller cough. "I... I suppose you should know that it hurts me as well."

This, she thinks, is outrageous.  _What a disgusting claim_ _._ "Oh, does it?" She snaps, looking over at him again. He does not meet her eyes. He simply continues to stare at Philip's cold face. "Does it hurt here?" She asks, holding a hand over her chest. "Is your heart broken with the pain of losing a child? Have you spent your nights weeping for your loss? The loss of a boy you hardly knew, yet decided you knew well enough to end his life? You should be so lucky that he did not die right when you shot him. If your face was the last thing my son saw I'm not sure I could bear to look at it."

He opens his mouth as though to argue, but she cuts him off. "Or does it, perhaps, hurt like a bullet piercing into your flesh? The bullet from your gun went entirely through my son's hip, you know? Lodged itself into his arm. And he put on a brave face. My boy, my Philip. Even on his death bed he would not cry. Were it not for the blood I wonder if my sister even would have known he needed medical attention. But oh, there was blood. So much blood. From the wound you put in him.

"Or does it instead hurt like an infection spreading through your veins? An infection like that of my son's bullet wound? It killed him in fourteen hours, you know. Alexander and I sat by his side until five in the morning when he said a prayer to a cruel God who would tear my baby from my arms and closed his eyes one last time. They had to pry me away from him, you know. That's how it hurt  _me_. A mother's pain. So please, tell me, George Eacker, what is a murderer's pain like?"

His mouth has fallen closed by now and he simply stares at the ground. The mud is staining his pants as well as her dress. She wonders if  _he_ will throw them away. Throw them away like he threw away her son's life. She wipes at her eyes. She is crying now. Fully crying, with tears streaming down her cheeks and stinging her eyes. "I didn't even know your name, you know," she spits, bitter. "And Alexander wouldn't tell me. I suspect he worried I would try to kill you. I suppose I might have, then. I had to find your name in the paper at the same time that the rest of New York found out what you'd done."

He doesn't speak. She wonders if he has somehow lost the ability. She should be so lucky. The mouth that slandered her husband and that challenged her son, her  _dead son_ , to a duel would no longer move and his words would forever be caught in his throat. Either way, after long enough has passed, she stands. The rain is beginning to calm down somewhat. "Let me walk you home," he says, wide-eyed, desperate.

She looks back at him over her shoulder. "So you can explain to me how you're  _hurting_ _?_ I'd rather risk death."

He swallows, and does not follow.


End file.
